Vincent van Gogh’s ‘Portrait of Dr Gachet’ (oil on canvas, 67cm × 56cm) is considered to be his most admired painting. The portrait has two valid versions, both painted in the same month, portraying Dr Gachet who had been appointed by Van Gogh’s brother Theo to take care of the artist in his final days in 1890 at Auvers-sur-Oise. The painting is intensely gloomy and the colour palette is very heavy and oppressive and the two novels shown are also depressing in content. The artist later wrote that Gachet’s face was grief-hardened and “he is sicker than I am.”

It has the distinction of being the most expensive painting ever sold at an art auction when it sold within three minutes for $82.5 million on May 15, 1990 to Ryoei Saito, Japan’s second-largest paper manufacturer. Nowadays it is in a private collection. — M.I.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, June 22nd, 2014